The Write Blog

This week on The Write Environment, Sam Simon Wednesday at 10:00 PM on KCET

2011-01-26T00:11:00.000-08:00

This week on The Write Environment, host Jeffrey Berman interviews Sam Simon, a co-creator of Fox's longest running animated TV series, "The Simpsons," Simon discusses his favorite comedians, as well as his work for "Taxi", "Cheers", and "The Drew Carey Show.

Simon started out wanting to be an animator, so it's no surprise that he is one of the Executive Producers who co-created Fox's longest running animated TV series, "The Simpsons". The recipient of a dozen Emmys as well as a Peabody Award, Simon has written for some of TV's most notable series including "Taxi", "Cheers", and "The Drew Carey Show". In this candid one-on-one with Simon, this critically acclaimed television writer, producer and director discusses his early days in Hollywood, shaping the face of "The Simpsons", and his fondness for comedian, George Carlin.

The Write Environment airs on KCET starting January 5th.

2011-01-04T00:24:00.000-08:00

If you are in the Los Angeles area you can watch The Write Environment on KCET every Wednesday night at 10pm and again the following Saturday evening at 11PM.

KCET's press release Announces New Program Schedule

Wednesday is Drama Night. At 8:00 p.m., Robert Vaughn stars in Hustle, about a grifter who works with a team of con artists with a conscience in England. Then Helen Mirren stars in Prime Suspect as the tenacious, difficult and brilliant Jane Tennison, a no-nonsense British detective for Scotland Yard. Next, The Write Environment features local filmmaker Jeffrey Berman as host of one-on-one interviews with prolific screenwriters.

Jeffrey Berman hosts this series of programs that provides an insight into the creative process by talking to some of the most influential writers in the entertainment business. This week's guest is writer/director Joss Whedon, who is one of the most prolific figures in television.

You can find out more and keep track at KCET's website. http://www.kcet.org/shows/write_environment/

Or keep watching here for updates.

A Kick-Ass discussion with Mark Millar

2010-08-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

This article is long overdue. I haven’t blogged much lately because I’ve been busy developing a new series called Naught For Hire, starring Bern Browder. I won’t take up anytime discussing the show just now but if you’d like to learn more about it check out www.naughtforhire.com. In the meantime…

If you’re a comic book reader, like me, you have to agree that the industry has reached a new golden age. Especially now, when the Hollywood has reached the point where they can faithfully adapt the mainstream stories we’ve been reading for years, even decades and still find time to adapt some of the lesser known, independent comics. There has never been a better time to be a fan of comic books.

Which brings me to an interview I did with the writer of the best comic to be adapted into a film this year, so far… Kick-Ass.

Created by Mark Millar ("Wanted") and John Romita, Jr. ("Spider-Man"), Kick-Ass is the story of an average high school teenager who decides to put on a costume and fight crime as a real life superhero, and runs into real world bad guys who beat the crap out of him. And by that I mean two broken legs, a ruptured spleen, a collapsed lung and some serious head trauma. And that’s just the end of issue One of this eight-issue limited series.

Not your traditional comic book superhero.

But then, Mark Miller is not your traditional superhero comic book writer. Multi award-winning writer Millar has revamped the X-Men, launched a number one Spider-Man title, brought Captain America into the 21st Century and made Superman a communist. He is also the writer of the US industry's biggest-selling comic book of the past decade, Marvel's Civil War, published in 2007. His Wanted comic series was the industry's biggest-selling creator-owned book of the last ten years until he smashed his own record with Kick-Ass, each issue selling more than Spider-Man and X-Men from issue one with an unprecedented five printings every issue. Both properties were sold as movies before the first issue hit the stands and everything Millar has ever created is in various stages of theatrical development.

During the premiere of Kick-Ass, I had the good fortune to speak with this non-traditional comic book writer. And being a non-traditional interviewer I promised I wouldn’t ask any of those softball press junket questions such as “If you could be a Superhero what power would you like to have?” Instead, we dug deep into the nitty-gritty of what it means to be a superhero in the real world.

Jeffrey Berman: At some point over the last few decades’ comic books, yours in particular, abandoned fantasy for grittier, adult oriented stories that more often than not reflect real life. What is it about those themes that resonate so much with you?

Mark Miller: Well, I think it is quite interesting that before my career took off, and for quite a long time, nothing really happened. I was getting short gigs here and there on books that were just about to be canceled and I would maybe get a short run on things here and the stuff was quite well received but never really resonated with a mass audience the way that every writer supposedly wants to do. And I think what I was doing is that I was influenced by my comic book collection as opposed to being influenced by the world outside. Then I read this interview with Stan Lee, which I found very interesting, it was an old interview with him, and he was talking about what made Marvel and DC very different was that Marvel Comics were one DNA strand away from the real world and it was supposed to be the New York outside his window he was writing about with these fantastic characters in it. And at that point something switched on with me. It was around about the year 2000. I was making the jump from Superman Adventures, which I loved writing but it was a children’s book you know, like a fairy tale book. And jumping over from that to The Authority which was very grounded, earthy super heroes in the real world book and that was when I found my style. The way that artists have a particular style whether it is cartoony or surrealism or whatever I think that’s where I found the style that I was most comfortable with. And instead of looking back at old comics which I loved I tried to look ahead and think what would get the next generation into it.

JB: Starting with The Authority and moving forward from there, is it safe to say that your work is really characterized by a hard-edged cynical view of the superhero world and of the superhero himself?

MM: Um... it is funny because I never really think of it as cynical but I think your readers know your work a lot better than the writer does, as kinda like the way your family members know you better than you know yourself. And that is the thing people seem to take away from my stuff, that it is kind of dark or cynical or political and it is weird because I do not think of myself as that type of person. But maybe that is just a slightly skewed perspective, that someone, a foreigner essentially, dealing with American icons brings to it. We maybe look at people in uniforms with ultimate power with a lot more suspicion than Americans do. I think Americans have a really healthy optimistic attitude and I think sometimes that can be taken advantage of. Generally speaking, I think Americans tend to look up to people in uniform, whereas in this country, we are a little bit suspicious of anyone in power. So I mean that is only my own personal theory of why we maybe look at super heroes a little differently than you guys.

JB: You have to admit that Kick-Ass is a very violent book. In my opinion, extreme violence seems to characterize a lot of the work you have been doing lately.

MM: Well it’s quite interesting actually ‘cause again I am too close to really notice, but when I look back it is quite interesting. One of my relatives showed me that every image was like Wolverine slashing a Hulk in half for something or Apollo flying through a giant man’s head, you know that kinda stuff. Oh my God, that is something like a serial killer would come up with, you know. I think of myself as a very nice healthy person, you know, and I was quite disturbed when I saw it. I think of myself as quite charming and it’s funny. Growing up as a Catholic I suppose my earliest imagery I saw around the house and in the church was of someone being crucified or someone being flayed or whatever, you know. So I think we are very comfortable with very disturbing imagery. I have noticed this amongst a lot of Catholic writers, like Frank Miller.

JB: What I enjoy about the independent projects you have been writing lately is that there is a very strong sense of realism which started with The Ultimates, where you took superheroes that had been in that world and said what would they be like if they were real people today. Looking at your work, what do you think is the next level of realistic super heroes? Where do you go with them from here?

MM: I think your cast is part of a wave actually, you know. You have the golden-age characters, which I adore, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, all your classic characters. And then you have your Atomic-age characters, you know, your silver-age characters, like the Marvel characters. You got either the re-inventions of the beefy characters and the stuff that (Joe) Simon, Jack (Kirby) and (Stan) Lee created. Then you sort of get your image characters which they never quite caught on, but they do belong. They were huge in their day and I think we always forget just how big those things were. At the time they were really as big as Spiderman was back in the sixties. Things were selling millions of copies. What I see now is a gap in the market essentially. I think everyone has been waiting for the next generation of superheroes to come along. They’re re-inventing Spiderman with Ultimate Spiderman, re-inventing The Avengers with The Ultimates. And I think that people are looking for something new. I was quite surprised how big Wanted was when I wrote the comic, because it was the first creator owned thing I tried and it out sold Spiderman. And then Kick Ass came along and out sold Wanted. I don’t even know if it’s because if they are technically good or they are sort of fulfilling a need. That people are looking for the post-millennial superhero now… they’re looking for the next thing. So what I am trying to do now is to create a whole wave of these in the same way that Stan and Jack did back in the sixties. To write them all within a few years of one another and hopefully get this generation a big library of super heroes.

JB: Do you think visually when working on a script or does story come first with you?

MM: Oh that’s a really interesting question because people who work as novelists and try to do comics find out it is different than writing a book. Whereas screenwriters adapt to it very well because it is a very similar discipline. Although I think it is even tighter than screenwriting because you can have people chatting for three minutes and it is fascinating. Visually it is interesting because the actors keep it together, but if you have a whole issue of two people talking it is eventually very dull. In comic books something interesting, visually interesting has to happen every few pages. So I think you almost write comics as an artist, I think it is a weird thing for a writer to say but I think it is eighty percent visually driven. A great writer can be destroyed by a bad artist, but a great artist can make even a rubbish story look good. I would say I probably have three or four big visuals in my head before I start writing anything and I always like to give at least two big moments every issue.

JB: I would agree with your assessment about the talking heads in comics for every writer except probably Brian Michael Bendis, who can do an entire book of people just talking to each other and get away with it.

MM: Yeah, luckily he is so good at dialogue he can get away with that. Guys like him are the David Mamet’s of comics.

JB: Do you find yourself constantly being forced to push the envelope with each new project that you write?

MM: Only forced by myself, because I get bored really quickly. If you noticed, most writers stay on something three, four, five years as a nice steady paycheck. But I got this weird thing that I fire myself every year. I never stay on anything more than a year and I hate the idea of resting on my laurels. Some friends I have had have said, “Oh you know you should stick around for a few years and even the bad patches you learn from and then suddenly you find a whole great new section of your arc.” I just feel comics are so expensive that I want every page to be as good as it can be. I try to make every issue visually exciting, filled with story content and everything and just as I am exhausted I move on to a whole new series.

JB: When writing books like The Authority or The Ultimates do you equate violence with realism?

MM: I think violence is realistically what’s going to happen if you put on a costume and go out looking for trouble. Whereas if I was writing a story like American Jesus perhaps for example, the realism of being a twelve year old boy in the American Mid-West is probably very non-violent. At best there is probably going to be a scuffle once a year or something like that at school. But generally speaking it is just you walking around talking to your friends and maybe playing video games or something. To me the realism comes with the situation. Something where the guy is putting on a wet suit and going out looking for gangsters, you know, in one night you are gonna end up with the most horrific violence and end up in an actual emergency.

JB: What is your writing process? How do you work? Do you start with an outline? What is a typical day for you?

MM: Actually it is kind a weird, you know. I really enjoy it but somebody described it as passing a really difficult stool and I think that it is an accurate description of it. Because you know you know that the story is there, you are just trying not to fuck it up. You don’t always succeed at that. It is kind a like the story exists and you are just dusting away at it like an archeologist and you are just trying to raise it out of the ground without breaking it. The story I am working on now is like an eight part story that I am just starting today. It’s all there. What I do is just start drawing little scenes and good visual moments. The sort of stuff you would be chatting about if it was a movie and you were walking out of the cinema with your friend. I try to get the scenes, the moments together and then I organically start linking them and how to make it all work. And I know on some kind of sub-conscious level that they do all link together and then I start writing. The bulk of it is done pen and paper and then I write the dialogue and then I start to break it down over issues and edit so that a 29 page story gets down to the necessary 22. I am very ruthless with the stuff, cutting out scenes, cutting out panels, combining panels. Just until the structure is the way I want it to be. I think I am about half as fast as everyone else that I know that I work with, because most guys that I know just sit down and start typing. But I believe in it and I really put that much thought into it and I am there from nine to six every day. And I am amazed when I hear that the guys do four days and everything. I am amazed at how they do it because I get two books a month out if I am lucky and that is an eight hour day.

JB: How has your writing process changed over the years from when you first started working in comics?

MM: Probably identically actually. This is pretty much how I have always worked. I think it is like a muscle though, in a sense that the more you work it the better it gets. I have my own little short hand and everything. Like I used to note the very good action scenes. Now I just have this thing in my head if I storyboard it out on paper and make flow as simply and dramatically as possible, just editing and editing. I think action scenes are kind of one of my strong points, you know. So hopefully I have gotten better.

Juliet Landau Takes Flight

2010-02-25T01:48:00.000-08:00

Juliet Landau is a renaissance woman. She acts, writes, directs, produces, edits and for all I know, dances a mean tango, too.

So when Gary Oldman agreed to direct a music video shot entirely on Nokia cell phones for the Jewish Hip Hop band, Chutzpah he realized his three-day odyssey needed to be documented in a behind the scenes “making of” video. With that in mind, Oldman turned to first time director, Juliet Landau to capture his unique vision.

"Juliet Landau is an exceptional talent! I entrusted Juliet to make a documentary film about me and I am thrilled with the results! TAKE FLIGHT is a special film that shows me in a very different light. I will work with Juliet again without hesitation."
-Gary Oldman

What began as a five-minute behind the scenes “making of” film quickly morphed into a 25-minute documentary that is at times oddly transfixing, very insightful and mostly a joy to watch.

So why are we talking about a documentary in a blog that’s dedicated to writing? Because films don’t happen in a vacuum. Dramatic screenplays don’t write themselves and documentaries aren’t just cut together without a lot of pre-production.

Documentary filmmakers, like their screenwriting counterparts, endeavor to tell strong character-driven stories with tension, and a narrative arc that keeps the viewer engaged from the beginning to the end. Unlike writers of fiction, documentarians can’t invent characters and plot points, so it is incumbent upon them to instead find these in the subject they choose to shoot. In many ways editing a documentary is very similar to editing a first draft of a script. The struggle to decide what to include is as equally important and difficult as deciding what to omit.

In a documentary, shots, scenes, and sequences help to convey narrative information about time, place, events, people, emotion and point of view. Obviously the better you know your story before you shoot, the better prepared you’ll be to find those key moments as they occur.

In the weeks leading up to the release of TAKE FLIGHT, Juliet engaged in a whirlwind of interviews, marketing strategies and updates via social media, all the while editing a viral campaign in hopes that it would be ready in time for its target release date, February 25th. Juliet was kind enough to take a few minutes out of her busy schedule to discuss the process of creating a first time documentary.

Jeffrey Berman: Prior to shooting TAKE FLIGHT, how did you approach the story you wanted to tell and did the final product reflect your initial concept? If not, how did it differ?

Juliet Landau: Well, first of all, Gary Oldman was about to direct a music video for the Jewish Hip Hop band, Chutzpah, which he was shooting entirely on cell phones. He asked me to direct the “making-of.” After I agreed, I realized that although I have been in many a “making-of,” I had never actually watched even one. I buckled down and watched tons of film “making-of’s,” music video “making-of’s,” documentaries and director commentaries. I made notes about the elements that I found most interesting and riveting. The thru line of those elements began to emerge. It became clear that I was interested in seeing an artist at work, being a party to his/her process. I knew that I was going to have three cameras, and while I would catch all of the action, I was certain that I would stay on Gary as much as possible. I had 50 hours of footage that I condensed into a 25-minute film, which includes Gary’s music video at the end. I watched all 50 hours three times through. Gary operated one of the “cell-cam’s” which afforded us an extremely rare POV. It’s as if the viewer is inside his head, seeing through his eyes. It was while watching the footage that it evolved. I asked Gary if I could make a short documentary and he gave me his blessing to do so.

JB: What was the development process like on TAKE FLIGHT? What kind of shooting outline or detailed treatment did you write to serve as a blueprint for the documentary?

JL: I made a timeline of all of the shots I wanted to be sure to get. But, I also wanted to be open to go with the surprises as they presented themselves. While I did shoot some direct to camera interviews, I always felt it would be more in the vein of verite filmmaking. My outline was two pages long. I would check stuff off as we got it, for instance, having each of the girls sing the Red Rover song. It was always my intention to try to capture Gary’s incredible sense of humor.

JB: How did the editing process affect the story you initially set out to tell with TAKE FLIGHT?

JL: Initially I thought I’d cut the cell phone footage in here and there with the HD footage being the basis for the timeline. But when I saw the unique perspective I had with the phone footage, I decided it had to be the reverse. I intercut it in the following way: first we get peppered glimpses, then longer, more expansive pieces, and by the end, the viewer is completely released into Gary’s view. While it all cuts seamlessly and fluidly, I decided to keep the cell footage 4X3, and everything else 16X9. Not only does it preserve Gary’s framing, it makes it clear to the audience when we are “looking though his eyes.” The music video is very cutty. I wanted to linger on and relish the beauty of those shots. The film starts as a chronicle of the shoot, but it becomes something more. There is a point where Gary says, “I’m just trying to find the right moment…” I think that is the pursuit of every artist, searching for the moment where everything gels, and takes flight.

JB: How involved were you with Gary Oldman as he was shooting his video? Was there any discussion with him prior to shooting about shots you wanted or were looking to get?

JL: He basically gave me free reign so I was really nervous when the day arrived to show him my cut. I went to his house with my computer, the hard drive and a thick spiral notebook, to get his notes. I thought sitting there while he watched it was going to be the most interminable 25 minutes of my life. But I started the film, and low and behold, it was fun! He was completely engaged and laughing throughout. Afterward, I had my pen poised, ready to take copious notes. But he only gave me one note. A note about moving a sound cue, one of his comments, to a bit later, and that was it!

JB: As a first time documentary writer/director what did you learn from producing TAKE FLIGHT and how will this affect the next project you decide to shoot?

JL: Just like with acting, and with life for that matter, it is good to trust your instincts. They always lead me in the right direction. I was lucky to work with incredibly talented, skilled people, which I absolutely will do on my next shoot. Also, preparation is key. When I co-directed the HERO music video for Godhead or with the viral campaign I am putting together for TAKE FLIGHT, preparation makes all the difference in the world. I prepare for everything I work on, whether it’s acting, still shoots, directing, you name it, and it always pays off. I find the more prepared I am, I have a fluidity and ease to flow with the unexpected. I’d like the next project to have a real budget. It is hard to work around people’s paying gigs when you are pulling in favors. The process gets protracted and tiring. But either way, in the end, it is amazing to have a vision and to bring it to life!

You can watch Take Flight at Juliet’s official site.

From Batman to Star Wars: Writer Steven Melching Gets Animated

2010-02-11T03:16:00.000-08:00

In many respects, animation writing is the bastard step-child of TV and screenwriting. When it comes to the act of writing there is absolutely no difference between writing a script for an animated half hour series or that of a live action sitcom. There just isn’t. Any way you twist the glass it’s still writing. Yet for all the strides the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has made towards protecting TV writers, they still don’t cover animation writers. There is no reasonable or logical explanation for it; it’s just a fact of life. Becuse of this the majority of animation writers are denied the same benefits as their cousin live action writers (with the exception of some prime-time animated series). Most animation writers receive no residuals, spotty health coverage and often times little or no recognition for the job they do to entertain us.

And yet, knowing all that, given the opportunity I would like to write an episode of an animated series somee day. It’s practically the only genre of screenwriting I have yet to tackle. I’ve written feature scripts. I’ve written TV movies, spec’d a few sitcoms and even wrote a rom-com pilot. But I’ve never written a script for an animated series. The reason lies partially in the reality that as low as feature film screenwriters are on the Hollywood totem pole, and believe me, we’re pretty low, animated writers are at the bottom of the totem, deep beneath the ground.

It’s probably for this reason I’ve never had an agent or a manager push me in that direction. But I’m still a kid a heart and I still love cartoons. So to be able to write one would be a fantasy for me. Not something I would do for the money and certainly not for the fame but something I would do for love of the art. I might not be able to retire on it but you can bet your bottom dollar I’d be as proud of it as anything else I’ve written.

The beauty of writing animation is there are very few limitations. Anything the writer can imagine can be filmed without fear of changes due to cast or budget limitations because there simply aren’t any. Of course, it would probably help if I had more contacts in the animation world.

I have one now. Steven Melching . Some of the more recognizable series Melching has been associated with include: X-MEN, GODZILLA, AVENGERS, MEN IN BLACK, THE MUMMY, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, two different BATMAN series and the crème-de-le-crème, STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS. In the world of animation Melching is one of my heroes.

Jeffrey Berman: How is writing for animation different from writing for live action TV?

Steven Melching: That’s difficult for me to answer, because I haven’t written much live-action television. But I think there are more similarities than differences, especially given how sophisticated animated television has become in the last 15-20 years in terms of storytelling. It’s no longer strictly for children. There’s been an explosion of animated series for the adult audience, and even shows produced primarily for young audiences have strong followings with teenagers, college students, and beyond. Any stigma attached to watching cartoons after a certain age has evaporated.

There’s a misconception that you can “do anything” in animation, that the only limitation to the storytelling is the writer’s imagination. While there is some truth in that, the fact remains that animated series have budgets and schedules, just like live action. Speaking parts still have to be cast and actors paid, and even though actors can perform as many as three voices, we can only afford to hire so many. Each new character, prop, vehicle, and location has to be designed by an artist, which costs money. And some things are just very difficult and/or expensive to animate convincingly, so we try to avoid them. Things like crowd scenes. There might actually be more differences between writing for cell animation versus computer animation than between animation and live-action. Or between writing gag-driven animation versus action/adventure animation.

One thing we tend to do in animation is “direct on the page,” which is discouraged to varying degrees in live-action. Sometimes it gets as detailed as describing every single shot in a scene. So animation scripts are generally much longer than live-action scripts. For example, a script for a 30-minute action/adventure show is usually between 32-36 pages long, but written in the same single-space format as a live-action movie.
And I’m really only talking about half-hour “story driven” animated series. Other cartoons don’t really even have scripts at all. They start with an outline, but are “written in storyboard” by the story artists and director.

JB:. How has your style of writing changed from early in your career when you were writing for The X-MEN to today where you’re currently working on BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD?

SM: If anything, my style has gotten looser and more readable as I got more comfortable with the medium. I think my craft and confidence has improved to the point that I can use fewer words to say the same thing. (Not that you can tell by my long-winded answers to these questions.)

When I started on X-MEN, I loved to write the action sequences. I took great pleasure in plotting out the mayhem blow-by-blow. But as the years pass I find that stuff less and less interesting to actually write. Don’t get me wrong, I love action. I love dreaming up an inventive setpiece. And I love figuring out how to advance story, explore character, and illuminate theme through action, but actually sitting down to type it all up is sometimes tedious.

JB: How much freedom do you have when it comes to story and character development for a series like STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS? And what, if any, are the limitations?

THE CLONE WARS is a unique case. I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work on shows based on beloved properties with long histories and devoted fandoms (X-MEN, BATMAN, HE-MAN, TRANSFORMERS), but never one where the original creator was actively involved. I mean, George Lucas is personally involved in every stage of the process, from approving (and often generating) stories, giving notes on scripts, supervising the design, to shaping the final episodes in the editing room (which can involve a lot of rewriting and restructuring). Also, the director is king at Lucasfilm. That’s just George’s filmmaking philosophy. In large part the script serves as a means to generate film to edit, which then illuminates what elements need to change. It’s a fascinating process.

As a writer for CLONE WARS, I can’t say I had much freedom in terms of the big picture, for several reasons. George Lucas and supervising director Dave Filoni have very specific goals in mind for the stories. And since the series takes place between two movies, there’s only so much development that can take place, at least as far as the major film characters are concerned. Where there is latitude is with the supporting characters, as well as the ones that were created for the show. As a writer, my challenge is to capture that very specific STAR WARS tone, find fun ways to keep the story moving, and invent new little details that are surprising.

JB: In animation what comes first, story or plot? And why?

SM: Story, for sure. To me, story is the broad strokes, the beginning-middle-end, the journey of the characters. Plot is the logic and mechanics required for the story to track and make sense. With some shows, CLONE WARS in particular, a third element is very important: theme. In fact, that often came first. What is the story really about? The answer to that question informed every other aspect of the writing.

JB: Can you break down your writing routine on a typical episode of BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD?

SM: It always starts with a call from producer/story editor Michael Jelenic. He tells me what heroes and villains they want to use, and which ones they don’t. Sometimes he has an idea for a story for me to flesh out, and sometimes he asks me to pitch him ideas. Once we hone in on a story we’ll get together with producer James Tucker and we’ll try to break the story in the room. Throw around ideas, and come out of the meeting with a strong idea of what the “A” and “B” stories are, how they relate, and what the character arcs and relationships are.

Then I go home and write it up in a few pages. Michael and James will give me their thoughts on that premise, and then I’ll either revise it or flesh it out further into a 10-12 page outline that lays out the story scene-by-scene. Then it’s back to Michael and James for another round of notes. Unless we discover major problems with the story, I don’t usually rewrite the outline. I just keep the notes in mind as I write the first draft script. Then another round of notes and another draft. Hopefully the script is in pretty good shape at that point, and Michael does the final polishing himself.

A couple weeks later comes the best part, the cherry on the sundae: the voice recording session! It’s always a blast to go into the studio, see the cast and meet the guest stars -- and we get some GREAT guest stars. One of my favorite memories is seeing comedian Fred Willard in the booth with German horror actor Udo Kier. It’s really satisfying to hear the script come alive. As the writer, I am sometimes asked to clarify things for the director or actors, and write new dialogue on the spot.

JB:. What is the best advice you can offer to someone who wants to break into the world of animated series as a writer?

SM: Make sure it’s what you really want to do. Don’t think of it as “slumming,” or as a way to earn some quick and easy cash, because it’s neither. Producers can smell that attitude a mile away. It’s vitally important to love animation, and understand its strengths and weaknesses.

Aside from that, I’d give the same advice to someone who wants to break into live-action. First, write a spec animation script (or two) for a current show in the genre you want to find work in, like action/adventure, action/comedy, comedy, or pre-school. Then make contacts with producers and executives any which way you can. Ask them to read your stuff. Or better yet, put yourself in a position where they ask to read your stuff. Get a job at a studio or network, or on a show as a script coordinator or producer’s assistant, so you can move in the right circles. Learn the world and the players. Read animation scripts and watch animated series. Animation is a rather small and insular community, and it can be very difficult to crack, so you have to be patient, and above all, persistent.

Neil Gaiman, Literary Rock Star and Me.

2010-02-01T18:14:00.001-08:00

Let's be honest, there's really not much I can say about Neil Gaiman that hasn't already been said by someone else, somewhere else. So instead of wasting time heaping praise upon the literary world's first iconic "rock star," I'll simply recount my two encounters with the widely read author and then I'll let Gaiman speak for himself.

The first time I met Gaiman was in a little comic shop I used to frequent in Sherman Oaks, California, called Forbidden Planet (sadly, it's no longer there). The Sandman had been in print less than a year and Gaiman was several years off from becoming the superstar he is today. Thus, I found him seated alone at the back of the store, making his rounds, promoting the book from store to store, city to city and God knows where else. There he sat as the rush of comic collectors wound their way around the store pawing through the week’s comics deciding which ones to buy and which they were just going to just read off the rack.

Being an avid comic book reader, I had stumbled across The Sandman when it first hit the stands earlier that year so I knew how prolific that guy in the dark sunglasses and leather jacket was. I headed home and retrieved my back issues, and then made my way back to the back of Forbidden Planet. Gaiman and I spoke for several minutes, then he signed my books. On my way out I picked up a copy of Sandman # 8 that DC had sent along with Gaiman as a giveaway. Apparently there was a misprint in the run and they were earmarked to be destroyed. Rather than waste them, DC decided to give them away for free. I’m told its quiet rare. Only 800 were printed. I got one.

My other cool Gaiman story took place several years later. My wife at the time, (which is code for my now “ex-wife”) knew I was a fan of The Sandman books so she wrote to Gaiman and asked if he would draw a sketch for me as an anniversary gift. Needless to say, he did.

I’m guessing it’s probably rare too.

Gaiman was kind enough to take a few minutes out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for The Write Blog. If you don’t know who he is, you’ve led a very sheltered existence. Back when he first created The Sandman he was simply know as an English comic book writer. These days he is referred to as an author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, comics, audio theatre, and films. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker, as well as the 2009 Newbery Medal and is the author of Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. And of course, his most notable work to date remains The Sandman series.

Jeffrey Berman: I read that you once said, “I'm not really an adult novelist, or a short story writer, or a screenplay writer, or a poet or a comic writer or a radio play writer or a playwright or a children's author. If I'm anything, I'm a storyteller.” What do you see as the difference between a writer and a storyteller?

Neil Gaiman: These days most storytellers are writers; not all writers can (or do) tell stories. I think what I was trying to get at there was that for me the story is the most important thing. The medium for the story is less important, except as far as it makes the story shine, like a setting for a jewel.

JB: In what way does your writing differ now from earlier on in your career?

NG: It's less exciting and less scary. When I started out there were a lot of things I knew I couldn't do, and a lot of things I only found out I couldn't do by going and doing it. And no-one was watching and nobody cared. These days there are a lot of things I know I can do (but I don't want to repeat myself) and too many people watching.

JB: Myths play such a big part in your work. What is it about the “old stories” that appeals so much to you? What is their importance to you as a writer?

NG: I don't know why I love them (do we ever know why we love?) but I do, and they make me happy, and I try to pass on that happiness.

JB: You spent ten years crafting the mythology that went into the Sandman. What kind of research did you do before you began writing it and how much more was required on your decade long journey with Morpheus? Did you always know where the story would end or was it something you came upon as you were writing it?

NG: I knew where it would end. The research was a combination of 26-36 years of reading everything I could, combined with mad cramming whenever I had any story that demanded historical accuracy.

JB: How do you decide what medium is best suited to tell a story when you begin writing it, whether it’s a screenplay, a novel or a comic book? Is one more challenging than the other and if so, in what way?

NG: They're all challenging. It's just a different set of challenges each time. I tend to pick based on gut feeling and what I would like to see. Sometimes I'm wrong. I kept starting ANANSI BOYS as a movie and stopping, and eventually wrote the novel and was happy.

JB: Can you share any writing tips or techniques that you use or have developed? For instance, I’ve read that music is a big part of your writing ritual.

NG: Anything that keeps you happy and writing is part of my writing ritual: I like music, so I tend to have it playing in the background. But if I'm interested I can write in an airport waiting areas. The biggest tip is just to do it. Put one word after the other until you've made something that didn't exist before.

JB: How do you know when something you’ve written is finished or at least good enough to let go?

NG: I start thinking about the next thing. That's how I know the last thing is approaching the end.

If you’d like to know about what Neil Gaiman is up to you can follow him on his weblog at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/

Braving New Trails to the Web and Beyond with Screenwriter Aaron Mendelsohn

2009-12-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

Sisyphus had it easy compared to us screenwriters.

If the Writer’s Guild Strike of 2007 taught us anything, it’s that you don’t have to wait for the studios to green light your project to get something made. Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog and Felicia Day’s, The Guild are two shining examples of this. Truth is, all you really need is a script, a cameraman, some actors, a grip, a director, a coordinator, a production manager, a best boy, a make-up person, some P.A.s, maybe a driver, equipment, an editor and most importantly, craft service.

You’ll also need a place to display your production once it’s complete.

Enter the internet. That mystical, magical cloud we can neither see, nor touch but we’re convinced will either be the savior of Hollywood or its downfall. The jury is still out on that one. The point is this: it’s virgin territory and for those of us willing to take a risk and put ourselves on the line, it’s a fresh proving ground; an opportunity for writer/creators to finally exert greater control over their own content while bringing it directly to the consumer. On the other hand, it’s also a cheaper way for the studios to see what we’ve created without paying us anything in advance.

New media equals new paradigm.

So is new media really just old media with a fresh coat of paint or is it old media’s salvation? Although it’s still too early to predict the quality of content that will be created by the collision of old and new media, one thing is clear: it’s gotten a lot of us writers out from behind our keyboards and into the production end of the game. The question is, will it level the field or simply prove to be another wasteland? Conventional wisdom tells us it’s too early to tell, so I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

In the meantime, one writer I know who is currently exploring this wild New Frontier is Aaron Mendelsohn. Aaron recently took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few quick questions on writing for the big screen and for the internet.

A working screenwriter for over fifteen years, Aaron currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Writers Guild of America West. During the recent Writers Strike, Aaron brought together a group of top writers from Hollywood to launch Virtual Artists, Inc., a writer-owned studio that produces sponsor-supported "water cooler" entertainment for the Web. Earlier this year they completed their “A” round of financing and will be launching their first shows in 2010.

Previously, Aaron co-created the AIR BUD movie franchise and co-wrote the first two films. Among his other writing credits are the Lifetime movie CHANGE OF HEART, the Fox series “KINDRED: THE EMBRACED” and the independent feature CHAPTER ZERO, which he also directed.

Jeffrey Berman: What was your first break as a writer and what did you learn from it that you brought to your following writing assignments?

Aaron Mendolsohn: My first break was setting up a pilot for a drama series that was based on a book my old partner and I optioned. The pilot never went anywhere, but I learned how meaningful it was to have the credibility of a book backing you up. And this was back in 1993. These days, having some kind of pre-existing intellectual property is practically a requirement.

JB: There’s an old adage in the film business, “Never work with animals or children.” Is the same true when it comes to writing for them? Do you approach scenes differently when writing for a dog, like in your script for Air Bud?

AM: I think writing for children and animals is very liberating in that you don't have to conform to all the restrictive logic and behavior that comes with writing adult characters (unless you're Judd Apatow, in which case you write your adults as if they're children). And it's nice not to feel you have to make every line of dialogue Sorkinesque. The challenge, when writing about kids or dogs, is to not be too precious. No one likes precious. And avoid anthropomorphism. Dogs don't smile, they don't dance, and they don't raise their eyebrows. When we were writing Air Bud, our Post-It note on the computer was: Everything the dog does, he does it for the boy. He doesn't play basketball because he's some ball-jonesing canine Michael Jordan, he plays it because the boy he loves plays it.

JB: When you’re working on a story and you creatively hit a wall, what techniques do you use to break through and finish the script?

AM: I just write through it. Get down whatever hideous blather spills out of my fingertips, and then I "fix it in post."

JB: You recently created a new media company called, Virtual Artists that produces sponsor supported content. Is writing for the web different than writing for Film and TV, and if so, how does it differ?

AM: Films and TV are a lean-back experience. Web content is a lean-forward experience. We try to build interactive components in and around our shows, giving viewers the option to click, interact, respond, share and sometimes even control the narrative. It's the evolution of storytelling. Sponsors like this sort of engagement because it increases the number of touch points with viewers.

JB: What advice would you offer to up-and-coming writers who want to work in the industry?

AM: Get the rights to something that has a pre-built audience – book, graphic novel, magazine article, 1970s TV show – because, sadly, in this era of corporate bottom lines, no one's buying original stories anymore.

Josh Olson Won’t Read Your Script, But He Might Adapt Your Story

2009-12-10T03:04:00.000-08:00

The best education I ever got as a screenwriter came from reading scripts. When I started out I read every script I could get my hands on. I still do. When I have the time. Screenplays also make the best reference material when it comes to analyzing and breaking down a scene, especially when you’re stuck on one of your own. So when you read as much as I do, you digest a lot of pabulum. But every once in a great while you come across a screenplay that sucks you in and demands to be read. A script that refuses to let you put it down, until you’ve read every word, from Fade in until The End, every time you pick it up. A History of Violence is one of those scripts for me.

Based on a graphic novel (comic book), the screenplay by Josh Olson was nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA, the WGA award, and an Edgar in 2007.

Which segues into this week’s topic. Adapting scripts from other mediums whether it’s a novel, a play, a comic book or a video game, is a different breed of writing. You would think it would be easy; after all, the story and character are already developed which leaves the writer the simple task of transcribing it for filming. You would think that… but it ain’t so. I know firsthand because I’ve written several adaptations, including an M.O.W based on a biography of J. K. Rowling and I can honestly tell you that it was more difficult to write than some of the original scripts I’ve written.

So when it came time to discuss adaptations I went to one of the best, and one of my favorite writers: Josh Olson.

Writer of the cult movie, Infested, Olson broke into the studio world when he sold his original script Three Guns Blue to Paramount Pictures. That led to his first studio assignment, adapting the graphic novel A History of Violence. Since then, Olson has collaborated with legendary author Harlan Ellison on an adaptation of Ellison’s “The Discarded” for the ABC TV Series Masters of Science Fiction. He’s also worked on adapting the hugely popular video game HALO for producer Peter Jackson and has adapted the Dennis Lehane short story Until Gwen, which he will also direct. Additionally, he contributed the script Have I Got Story for You to the smash hit Batman: Gotham Knights project. More recently, Olson wrote a sequel to The Wizard of Oz for Warner Brothers and has just finished adapting the Lee Child bestseller One Shot for Paramount.

He is currently developing a TV drama, Pleased To Meet Me, with the legendary guitarist Slash, and is writing the pilot for Meanwhile, a dramatic series he created and sold to producer Peter Chernin and the Fox Network. Olson can also be seen commenting on classic film trailers at Joe Dante’s website, Trailers From Hell.

His Village Voice essay, “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script” became an internet phenomenon, getting upwards of two million hits, and is spawning a book. (I wonder who will adapt it for the screen? Ed. Note).

Jeffrey Berman: How does the writing process differ when adapting a screenplay from a book versus working on an original idea?

Josh Olson: Every script is its own thing, whether it’s original, or an adaptation. There are no set rules to any of them. I’ve done adaptations where I’ve only read the source material once, and I’ve done them where I had the book open in front of me every step of the way. Hell, the writing process differs from page to page, let alone project to project.

JB: With a comic book like A History of Violence you obviously have less material to draw on then you would a novel or a series of novels like Oz. Does that allow you the freedom to develop original material or is there a fear of straying too far from the source? And does that make your job easier or more difficult?

JO: It’s not about the quantity of material. It’s about the material itself, and what you’re going to do with it. With History, I took John Wagner’s premise, title, and - god help me for using this phrase - “inciting incident,” and then leapt off and told my own story.

The graphic novel was packed with story, it just wasn’t a story I wanted to tell. It’s a solid, smart and fun action thriller, but I was a lot more interested in getting into questions of identity. In the book, there’s never a moment’s doubt that the main character is the man the mob guys think he is. I felt like that was a missed opportunity. I thought it was a great chance to play with a classic “wrong man” scenario in which the wrong man is actually the right man. And that led me to start thinking about identity, and what it is that constitutes your “self.” Is Tom the guy they all say he is? Or is he the guy he’s made himself into?

The freedom to stray from the material doesn’t necessarily come from the material, but from your own response to it. It also has something to do with the studio’s needs, as well. If you’re doing Harry Potter, there’s a billion fans that the studio’s trying to serve. If you fuck around with the fundamentals of the stories or the characters, you’re gonna be out of a job. But with something like History, we were talking about a ten-year old graphic novel that had a very small print run. There wasn’t a market-driven imperative to be faithful to the material, and it wasn’t the enormous audience that compelled the studio to purchase the book. I found out when they hired me off my pitch that they’d had the same concerns with the book that I did, and had just been waiting for someone to come in and show them how to take it into a completely different direction.

In the end, it’s gotta be a story you want to tell. I’ve written a lot of originals, but in the end, History was one of the most personal scripts I’ve ever written.

But, like I said, it’s not about quantity of material. I adapted Dennis Lehane’s short story Until Gwen a while back. It’s a 15-page story, and it’s very spare in terms of plot and detail. It’s mostly flashes of memory, tiny details, and bursts of emotion. Very little to work with, in terms of traditional scenes, but one hell of a powerful story. For the screenplay, in order to create a feature length narrative film, I had to invent most of the scenes, many of the characters, and find a way to structure it as a visual narrative. In terms of what a screenwriting 101 teacher would call “adaptation,” there’s maybe 20 pages of the thing that are directly based on Dennis’ story. However, from the first page to the last, I was being absolutely faithful to Dennis’ story and his vision, at least as I saw it.

That’s what it boils down to for me - writing is all about taking what I see and feel and communicating it to you. In the case of an adaptation, it’s about showing you how I saw something. Because I’ll never be able to really know what Dennis’ real vision was. All I can do is tell you how I connected to it, and hoped that it touches and moves you. In the case of something like Until Gwen, I’d also hope that it would inspire you to seek out the source material and let it have its way with you as well.

JB: When adapting a classic story like Oz, how closely do you keep to the source material and how important is that for any adaptation?

JO: Like I said, they’re all different. There’s no way to generalize about any script, adaptation or original. I wasn’t adapting a specific book, but I wanted to get across some of L. Frank Baum’s magnificent characters and settings, as well as write a movie that could stand as a sequel to the MGM classic. The story I sold Warner Brothers was my own story, utilizing characters and settings and information from the first few Oz books. The hope was to come up with something that would work as a sequel to the movie as well as satisfy fans of Baum’s world.

With the exception of the characters from our world that I created, every character in the script is from Baum. But I put them into my own story.

JB: Before you start to adapt a novel for the screen, such as One Shot by Lee Child, how do you determine what parts of the story go into the script and what parts are left out? And why is it necessary to leave anything out?

JO: One Shot was a project where my mandate was to introduce a very popular fictional character to a movie audience. In that One Shot is actually the ninth book in the Jack Reacher series, it necessitated changes that would allow us to make this the first movie. But beyond that, there’s almost always some basic nuts and bolts things that have to change. In One Shot, for instance, the book is paced rather leisurely. Jack spends a lot of time going back and forth between the same two or three locations, and while it works great in the book, it would have left us with a very static movie. I had to come up with ways to combine the net result of several scenes into one, all while not just being faithful to Lee Child’s fantastic character, but also introducing him to a larger movie audience that won’t be familiar with him.

JB: What advice would you offer to writers who are driven to find stories from other mediums to adapt as feature films?

JO: We’re at a point in the film business where it’s harder than it’s ever been to sell originals. We could discuss and argue the reasons for this ‘til the cows came home, but in the end, it wouldn’t change that fact. Studios are heavily invested in doing material that has some semblance of built-in recognition. The trick, for me at least, has been to find material that I click with personally. In the case of Until Gwen, it was a short story that just gutted me. In the case of History, it was a premise that allowed me to take the story into an entirely new direction and explore ideas that are of deep personal interest to me. With One Shot, it was a chance to fill a void I’ve been feeling for many years - the absence of smart, American tough guy movies. The book came to me the morning after I’d shown my girlfriend the first two Dirty Harry movies, and we’d talked about how sad it was that no one was making movies like that anymore. With Oz, I got to take books that I loved as a kid and use them to comment on the state of imagination today.

People often perceive adaptations as somehow easier than originals... “coloring between the lines,” if you will. But if you find the way into them, the way to make them personal to you, they can be as challenging as satisfying and as difficult as an original. Sometimes more so. The vast majority of directors don’t write their scripts. In essence, they’re adapting someone else’s work, translating a singular vision from one form to another. It’s all a challenge.

Getting it write with Jeffrey Berman, the host of The Write Environment

2009-12-01T02:01:00.001-08:00

Okay, I know it's been a while since I posted my last interview. Some of the fault is mine because I've been busy producing a project I wrote. But I can't take all of the blame. I'm currently waiting for three new interviews to come in, which I'm assured will be any day now.

So...

In the meantime, I thought this might be a good opportunity to reprint an interview that I did on the The Write Environment for Talking With Tim, which is a great site where you'll find pop culture interviews by Tim O'Shea. Check it out... but not until after you've read my interview first.

Jeffrey Berman on The Write Environment

When the writer’s strike happened in late 2007/early 2008, writer Jeffrey Berman was looking for a way to stay busy in a productive manner. And that’s how his new project began–The Write Environment. Here’s more details on the project: “THE WRITE ENVIRONMENT features 50-60 minute, in-depth, one-on-one interviews with some of the most lauded and prolific writers in the television industry today, including Damon Lindelof (Lost), Tim Kring (Heroes), Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond), Doug Ellin (Entourage), Sam Simon (The Simpsons), and Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

… each episode … takes viewers backstage into the heretofore unseen world of the writer’s room for intimate interviews that offer a rare look at these diverse writers and what inspires them. From that first idea to the finished script, the writers share their views and stories, examining their successes, failures, and everything in between.”

I enjoy the chance to interview interviewers, so my thanks to Berman for his time. In preparation of the interview, he was kind enough to allow me to view screeners of the Lindelof and Whedon interviews. My thanks also to Sylvia Desrochers for making this interview possible.

Tim O’Shea: How did you first come up with the idea of doing this series when the writer’s strike was in full swing? Do you think you would have been able to get these writers’ time if they had not been on strike?

Jeffrey Berman: The series came about as a byproduct of the Writers Guild Strike. I had co-founded a web site called UnitedHollywood.com. Our mission was to keep our members, and the public, informed as to what was really going on behind the scenes. My contribution to the site was producing live interviews from the strike line as well as viral videos to assist in getting our point of view heard. As the strike progressed we started talking about cutting out the middleman, aka the studios, which would allow us to retain ownership of our own projects. As an aside, I’ll tell you that screenwriting is the only faction of the creative world where the creators do not retain ownership or rights to their material once they sell it.

Anyway, The Write Environment felt like a natural progression from what I was already doing at the time. Plus, how often do you really get to hear interviews with the people who create the entertainment we spend the majority of our lives watching? I saw this as an opportunity for the fans to hear from the folks behind the scenes, while offering some insight into the work process to the screenwriting neophytes out there.

O’Shea: When you saw Dr. Horrible mapped out on Whedon’s planning wall, did you have any inkling how popular his “Internet thing” (as he described it to you in passing) would be?

Berman: Nope. Who could? Of course, it was expected that anything Joss did would have an impact and certainly find a home with his fans, but I’d wager even Joss was surprised with the attention, and sales, he received from it.

O’Shea: Whedon confided how he paces while writing (not in a narrative sense, but literally walking in his writing area)–I was curious if the floor was worn where he paces–or did you look?

Berman: That’s funny, but no. There are no trenches worn into his floor. Of course, had it been a carpeted floor it probably would have shown more wear, but I related to this as I do the same thing. No trenches in my home, either.

O’Shea: Maybe I’ve not read or watched enough interviews with Whedon, but had he previously discussed the fact that his father and grandfather were writers much before?

Berman: Not to my knowledge. I discovered this while doing due diligence for the interview. Prior to that I had no idea he came from such a prolific family.

O’Shea: Given that most of the interview subjects are associates of yours, did you have to do much research in preparation for the interviews. Did you prep the interview subjects about what ground you wanted to cover before filming began?

Berman: Yes and no. I did research each of the writers background and reviewed their work histories but beyond that I approached the interview from two sides; As a fan and as a student. Then I split my question down the middle. Or at least I tried to. And no prep was given to the writers beforehand. Though Joss and I did have a chance to talk a little shop while the crew was setting up for the shoot. Wouldn’t you like to know what was said then? Heh-heh!

O’Shea: In all the writer’s offices you toured in the projects, what was the most impressive heirloom that you saw?

Berman: Hands down, Mr. Echo’s stick in Damon Lindelof’s office.

O’Shea: While you are an experienced writer yourself, I’m curious if you gained some writing lessons from the interviews?

Berman: Absolutely. As a comedy writer I probably benefited the most from my interview with Phil Rosenthal. As an aside, I have to tell you that it was hands down the most enjoyable of all the interviews. His comedic timing is beyond perfect. He had the whole crew in stitches for a good portion of the interview. His insights into comedic writing probably had the greatest impact on me.

O’Shea: In talking with all these successful writers, were there any common traits (for success or effective storytelling) that you observed with a majority of the subjects?

Berman: Yes, writers write. That and never sacrifice your characters for story.

O’Shea: Were any of the subjects immensely more forthcoming with information than you originally expected when you picked them to interview?

Berman: It’s really a crap shoot when you do these kind of interviews. It’s taxing to ask someone to sit and talk about themselves for over an hour at a time. ( Which is why I chose to do it in a surrounding where they’re comfortable. ) I was extremely pleased and rewarded with how generous and forthcoming all of the writers were. Not to mention insightful. Each of them has a s wealth of experience in different formats and they were all absolutely fascinating to speak with.

O’Shea: I’ll ask the question you asked some of the writers: “what makes a good writer”?

Berman: Fortitude. Writing is hard. It’s so easy to just not write. But in those time where I’m not writing, in-between the enormous guilt I feel and the sheer joy of not being chained to my computer, I’m still thinking about writing. The struggle to turn off the TV and get back to work, that’s the hardest part for me.

O’Shea: In talking to these creators about their show, did any of them instill in you a new level of appreciation of the show or its characters?

Berman: I have to go back to Phil Rosenthal because I think he broke the mold with Everybody Loves Raymond. How that show was allowed to survive for nine years astounds me. And lucky for us it did. It was on the bubble many times, but kudos to CBS for sticking by it.

O’Shea: How do you explain your encyclopedia-level knowledge of TV (ie your example of Donald Bellisario’s breaking his vow never to delve into JFK in Quantum Leap)?

Berman: I’m a fan. What can I say?

O’Shea: Where can folks get the DVDs?

Berman: Yeah, if I can put in a plug, please check out my site at http://www.thewriteenvironment.com/indexFlash.html and buy a DVD or two. Then tell a friend. Then tell your friend to buy a DVD or two… or three… Okay, I’ll stop now.

Drusilla After The Fall - part 2

2009-10-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

If you are a regular reader of The Write Blog you've probably noticed that the frequency of my posts have diminished over the last month. Take heart in that it's not for the lack of desire or that I've run out of writers to interview(I don't foresee that happening anytime soon)... the truth is I've been engaged to write and produce an educational film that has consumed a great deal of my time due to a very tight shooting schedule. That said, I hope to be back to posting new interviews as soon as next week.

In the meantime, I wanted to update you on an interview I posted Tuesday, August 18, titled, "After The Fall Juliet Landau Takes On Angel" I recently received the following note from Juliet that I promised to pass on to my readers.

Hi Jeffrey ,

How are you? I hope all is great!

I am excited to let you know that Issue 2 of the Drusilla comic I co-wrote is now out! I am attaching the two covers I designed for this issue and a few photos from the bonus photo gallery that runs inside.

Hope to catch up real soon!!

:)
Juliet

So, if you haven't done so yet, head down to your local comic store and pick up the second part of Juliet's story. And if you haven't read the first part, pick that up too. Then come back here and reread my interview with her. Then drop me a line and let me now what you thought of it. Who knows, if I find something of interest in your comments I may just pass it along to Juliet.

The Write Environment Featuring an interview Doug Ellin

2009-09-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

Carleton Eastlake takes us from a Farscape to The Outer Limits

2009-09-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve been a Science Fiction fan since as far back as I can remember. I grew up watching shows like Star Trek, The Time Tunnel and The Twilight Zone. Back then sci-fi (or is it SyFy?) shows were few and far between.

One of the best science fictions series ever to air, in my opinion, was Farscape. I know a lot of Battlestar Galactica fans will probably take umbrage with that, and don’t get me wrong, I liked BG, but there was something unique about Farscape that I’d never seen before and haven’t since. The cast, the premise, the writing, the stories all came together in an oddly appealing formation that came at you from out of left field. How a show like that ever made it onto the air I have no idea. Chalk it up to the genius of Rockne O’Bannon and the guts of the Sci-Fi channel.

So imagine my excitement when I became friends with one of the series writer/producers several years ago. During his tenure with the series, Carleton Eastlake had written one of my favorite episodes, the two-parter titled, “Infinite Possibilities.” Yeah, even writers get a little fan struck from time to time.
So with that in mind I grabbed a few moments with my friend, Carleton Eastlake.

In addition to being a Sci-Fi writer, Carleton’s credits include work in crime fiction, historical fiction, action-adventure, and comic action-adventure. He’s written for V, SeaQuest DSV, Star Trek Voyager, Earth Final Conflict and Farscape. Carleton has also written scripts for Airwolf, Murder She Wrote and The Equalizer. Currently, Carleton is running for the Writers Guild Board and was the first nominee I personally endorsed. Fortunately, that hasn’t detracted other writers from endorsing him too.

Jeffrey Berman: You’ve written for some of my favorite Science Fiction TV series. So how does writing Sci-Fi differ from say, a drama or procedural series?

Carleton Eastlake: I think good science fiction and fantasy, because they break some or many of the rules of the real world, require that the rules of the imagined world be interesting and consistently applied. So much more attention needs to be paid to the mythology.
At the same time, there’s more room, if done in a credible way, to keep things fresh by evolving those rules, making new discoveries…here come The Borg with all sorts of new moral and psychological issues – and very different spacecraft!

On the other hand, it’s a little harder to keep the dramatic, psychological side of a science-fiction show compelling. It’s easier to ignore those concerns or be distracted from them. But if the show is consistent about its rules, then the character side of the show can absolutely work. Crichton and Aeryn on Farscape were very much in love and very much troubled by the moral conflict between running away and having a life, or staying and fighting to save their societies.
It’s also important in a science fiction show that the plot issue of the day be motivated by the implications of the world the show is set in. Attempts to do actual medical or criminal or legal procedural shows in a science fiction setting are very, very hard to pull off – the science fiction side undermines the credibility of the procedural issue, and the procedural issue rarely delivers on the magic and wonder of the setting.

JB: What kind of research, if any, did you do when you were writing/producing episodes of Seaquest DSV?

CE: Very little. In its first season, when I wasn’t on it, the show had the famed Bob Ballard as a consultant. The new team second season dropped his deal and approached SeaQuest mostly as fantasy without much arcing or attention given to the implications of its own imagined technology.

I had actually spent five days on a U.S. Navy guided missile frigate, and drew on that experience and on my general love of military science fiction and technology, but it wasn’t a requirement of the show.

Burning Zone, on the other hand, in its first several episodes, made good use of medical and science consultants. In my first episode, when the team synthesized an antiviral drug from ingredients on board the 747 so the pilot might live long enough to land the plane, the real science team devised at least a scientifically conceivable way of doing so.

JB: Farscape was by far one of the greatest Sci-Fi series that ever aired. When writing for a show like that, or any of the other series you were on staff for, was there a bible you were required to follow or were you free to write pretty much anything you wanted? And if there was a bible, does that in any way restrict your creativity?

CE: Farscape didn’t have a written bible after, I think, the first season, but absolutely had a deep respect for the continuity of its characters’ histories. You just had to learn it, and of course David Kemper would guarantee you followed it.

The shows had season or even series-long arcs, so most things had to fit into the sequence. The last episode I wrote – near the end of the last season – had 18 regular and recurring characters to service!

But within that context, there was plenty of room and need for creativity. I did an episode in which I had to service the arc’s requirement that the heroes discover two opposed alien enemies are in fact forming a secret alliance that will jeopardize all the alien civilizations. At the same time, as a lark, the preceding episode established all the males had gone off on a macho guy thing. So my episode had to be about the females – who in general were probably more competent and formidable than the males – going off alone.

But then it was up to all of us to make a story around that. So we had the females go to a spa world to get make-overs…but for their starship, changing its sensor profile when scanned at long range so it seems like a different type of ship. (This then became part of the continuity and yes indeed, in later episodes, other writers used the identity generator to sneak the ship into places where it didn’t belong. And it’s good S-F – U.S. Navy warships use fairly similar technology to disrupt missile attacks.) While waiting for the ship mod, they are horrified to stumble across the evidence that the new alliance is forming. To escape, etc., some of them have to get make-overs themselves, changing their DNA signature…and turning our Black-And-White Girl into a Technicolor marvel for awhile. That’s an example of creativity interacting with continuity.

I’ve been on another series where the writers had contempt for, or fear of, the genre and the audience and laughed about the written bible, which had been produced only to assuage the network, and then abandoned. That was a sad, sad experience.

JB: Were your episodes of the new Outer Limit series based on original ideas or were they pitched to you? What are the rules a writer should follow when writing for an anthology series?

CE: I wrote two episodes on which I had sole credit. (Trilogy had a smart policy that showrunners could only write one episode before shooting began and a second over the Christmas break – producing an anthology show was just too time consuming to allow the showrunner to take more time away from the daily production and from rewriting to budget.)
The first episode was about a resource exploration team from Earth who discover a valuable planet and eliminate the native savages who get in their way. It turns out the “savages” were the alien equivalent of boy scouts on a camping trip – which the explorers learn when a Star Destroyer (an alien warcraft that looks like it could eat even a star for lunch) roars out of hyperspace responding to the dead kids’ emergency beacon…and incinerates our guys before heading toward Earth.

This episode was inspired by a newspaper account of the jolly adventures of a company of Serbian mercenaries raping and pillaging their way through a copper-rich province of the Congo. They had a great time, and thought that they were far superior to the savages…until they ran into a unit of the South African Army special forces. Ooops!

The second episode was about an engineering graduate student who flunked out of school after being badly treated, he felt at least, by various faculty and staff. Turns out that an exam question demanding he download the reasons why cold fusion is impossible inspired him to actually see that it is possible. To prove his point, he builds a cold-fusion bomb and returns to the university demanding that the people who treated him badly be executed by the government or he’ll destroy the entire city. The hostage negotiator finally realizes to his horror that the student is in part so nihilistic because he sees that the genie is out of the bottle. The insights he had were inevitable and so, soon, many people will be building city-destroying bombs in their kitchen sink.
The director actually rebelled over this script initially, telling me it was immoral to suggest that the government would start shooting innocent people to stop or appease a terrorist. Obviously, this was before 9-11.

Anyway…this script was inspired by an account I had read of the history of the atomic bomb. It mentioned that possibly the first person in the world to realize an A-Bomb could be built was a graduate student in Germany who was riding on a subway while reading a technical journal with a note reporting an excess release of energy from the neutron bombardment of fissionable material. It occurred to him, hey, since the reaction also released more neutrons, if this was a big enough lump of uranium…it would release a whole lot of energy all at once.
I am deeply concerned that mankind will engineer its way into a kitchen-table means of killing itself. And then somebody will do it. This was meant as a totally serious cautionary tale.
As for anthology writing, I suppose the major rule is that the episodes of an anthology need to have enough thematic consistency that the series feels like a series., i.e. that it offers a sufficiently predictable type of experience that the audience gets what it was looking for when it tuned in. I think not many people really understand this rule, which is one reason why most anthology series fail and we have so few of them.

JB: What is it about writing Science Fiction that attracts you and what advice would you offer for up and coming writers who are fans of the genre?

CE: As you can see above, I enjoy writing social-science fiction that explores moral themes. Most, not all, so-called science fiction is really fantasy or technologically enhanced action adventure, which I also enjoy. Like nerds everywhere, I love technology and its implications, and love military and social history.

Fans of a genre, whatever it is, of course need to be good writers generally and respect the genre and love it. They need surprisingly little actual knowledge to write television science fiction. On the other hand, if they intend to write prose, they need a deep grounding in technology for hard-core SF, or in medieval and ancient history and the conventions of the genre for sword-and-dragon fantasy. And so forth…

After The Fall Juliet Landau Takes On Angel

2009-08-18T00:23:00.000-07:00

One of the downsides to working as a writer in the entertainment industry is that writers are often pigeonholed into one style of writing; as if someone who writes science fiction films can’t handle a strong dramatic period piece. It’s frustrating because a good writer doesn’t want to keep writing the same story over and over again just as a good actor doesn’t want to continue playing the same role from one film to the next. It’s a vicious cycle in Hollywood; the machine wants to suckle the success formula until its bone dry.

For many years all I wrote were high concept comedies because that was the genre of the first script I sold. It was expected and incumbent on me to continue doing what I did best, without any thought of doing what I wanted to do most. That is until I wrote my first suspense thriller, which my agent at the time assured me would sell for seven figures. When it didn’t the agency dropped me. I was hardly discouraged. In fact I followed that script with a youthful action period piece which was immediately snapped up by a network as a series and ended up affording me the opportunity to sign with an even better agency. This eventually got me a gig writing a serious bio-pic for one of the most lauded authors of our time. Not bad for a comedy writer. Of course I still write comedies. I’ve even written a pilot for a romantic sitcom on spec recently, but not because someone was demanding it from me, but because it’s what I was driven to write. The point is a good writer will always rise to the top no matter what the genre. And while some writers do like to stick with a formula they know best, others like to stretch their talent and take chances.

The same can be said for actors, too. It’s just as difficult for Adam Sandler to be taken seriously, as it is for Meryl Streep to be seen as funny. But that hasn’t stopped them from making the effort. This brings me to this week’s interview with Juliet Landau. Lately, she’s been making that effort… and then some.

Yeah, we all know she’s famous for her role as Drusilla, the psychotic vampire on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL, but she’s not just a one trick pony. In addition to being an accomplished TV & Feature Film actress, she’s also proven her worth as a voice actor and lent her talents to projects such as Ben Ten: Alien Force, Justice League and most recently Green Lantern First Flight. But that ain’t all, because Landau recently made a name for herself as the director of TAKE FLIGHT, her documentary about Gary Oldman’s music video for the band Chutzpah and for co-directing the Godhead music video HERO, which Landau also appears in. More recently she wrapped production on an adorable new kid's movie called Monster Mutt.

So let’s see… she acts, she directs and now move over literary luminaries because she also writes. That’s right, Landau has become a triple threat by branching off into the comic book milieu with a two-part installment of the ANGEL series centering on Drusilla, co-written with IDW scribe Brian Lynch. So with all that in mind, I was curious how someone with her background and talent made the transition to writer so smoothly.

Jeffrey Berman: Angel #24 is the first comic you’ve ever written, so how did you approach writing the book?

Juliet Landau: I was really excited when Chris Ryall and Brian Lynch approached me to do it. I had read all of the Angel and Buffy comics. As I hung up from our initial phone call, the idea came to me. I wrote it in script form (Final Draft) and they loved it so we progressed from there. Next, I asked Chris to send me a few of the previous issues’ final scripts. I compared and studied them against the printed comics, so that I could learn the formatting, structure, number of panels per page etc…

I wanted to play with certain themes. A significant one being, order versus chaos. The doctors/the Institution think they have all of the answers, but Dru’s very existence defies that. She’s a character that cannot be reined in. I also wanted to play with the visuals, to further the story. The Institution and the people in it are cold, sterile, stark. Drusilla is the most vibrant element in each frame. Even though she is undead, she is more alive than the world surrounding her.

JB: The two issue arc centers around Drusilla. A character, it’s safe to say you’re pretty familiar with. So what did you bring to the script from an actress’ perspective?

JL: It was fantastic to revisit Drusilla. I think I brought a core emotional understanding of the character, especially in Issue 2, as Issue 1 is primarily the set-up. Dru’s history is dark and complex. I don’t think that she is often aware of what is motivating her, but I as the actress in the show, had to be. The audience made the connection, and in this case, the reader does. We all act out, based on our past (to lesser degrees, I hope!). I think it was because of having played her, that I was interested in exploring that reservoir.

JB: Before you began writing the comic book did you do any research or speak to any other writers in the industry and if so what advice did they give you?

JL: I sort of jumped in. I was working with Brian Lynch, who had written all of the previous Angel: After The Fall books. He is an incredible talent.

JB: What did you find was the most difficult part of writing the story and how did you work through it?

JL: There was a particular thing at the end that kept niggling me. I did what I do in any creative venture… I think about it relentlessly until I get the answer. I work it and re-work it mentally until I know the way I want to go. I have been branching into all kinds of creative areas. I directed Take Flight, a short documentary film about Gary Oldman (julietlandaustakeflight.com) and co-directed Godhead’s Hero music video ( HYPERLINK "http://godheadhero.com/" http://godheadhero.com/). Whether acting, directing or writing, I find my creative process to be very similar.

JB: What did you learn about being a writer from this experience and do you plan on writing anything else in the near future?

JL: I loved it! Working in this medium really forces you to think visually. It is about communicating a lot economically, with visuals, not with words. I really like that anyway, in movies/theater because behavior communicates volumes. I have written a short film called “It’s Raining Cats and Cats,” in which I will play seven different characters and I adapted a piece that I worked on at the Actors Studio into a short as well. I wrote those prior to the Dru comics and I definitely look forward to writing more!

The Write Environment Comic Book Series promo

2009-08-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

RDRR Productions & Dogma Studios releases THE WRITE ENVIRONMENT COMIC BOOK SERIES SPECIAL EDITION exclusively on DVD. This limited edition DVD features interviews with three of the giants in the comic book industry, Marv Wolfman, Mark Waid, and Geoff Johns. These respected writers provide invaluable behind-the-scenes insights into the creative processes that lead to their award-winning comic book scripts.

TNT's Saving Grace Roger Wolfson on writing for cable TV

2009-07-31T19:25:00.001-07:00

In my opinion, cable may be the saving grace for original scripted TV series. Some of the best shows of the last decade have come from cable, The Shield, Rescue Me, Army Wives, Battlestar Galactica , Kyle XY and Saving Grace, to name but a few. The beauty of having a series on cable is that you’re not a slave to the network machines. At thirteen episodes a year, writers can take their time crafting better storylines, writing quality scripts and developing relatable characters because they’re not forced to crank out a grueling twenty-two episodes a year. And while there are fewer jobs available for series writers in cable just now, with the increased number of reality series, the loss of UPN and NBC’s decision to shift the 10 pm slot across the board from Monday to Friday into Jay Leno’s personal property, the demand for better quality driven series is on the rise… and in all likelihood, cable will be there to meet the demands.

Which brings me to this week’s Q&A with one of my good friends and possibly the nicest guy I know, Roger Wolfson. In a cutthroat business built on the backs of other writer’s failures and successes, Wolfson remains one of the sweetest, most down to Earth guys you'll ever meet. Add to that he’s also he’s also a pretty good actor to boot and you’ve got the formula for success. But Wolfson didn’t start out wanting to be a TV writer.

Before becoming a professional writer, Wolfson worked in the US Senate for seven years serving as staff and/or speech writer for four US Senators: Joseph Lieberman, John Kerry, Paul Wellstone, and Ted Kennedy. He has also been Vice President of one of the largest news organizations in the country, has run a multinational strategic consulting firm, and practiced civil rights law.

He arrived in Los Angeles in January of 2003, and by July had earned a staff writer slot on the CBS series, "Century City.” The next year Wolfson was hired by NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." While writing for "Law & Order: SVU" he also wrote speeches for, and traveled the country as a surrogate speaker, for the Senator John Kerry Presidential campaign.

In 2005 his episode of "The Closer" entitled "Fantasy Date" garnered Kyra Sedgwick an Emmy Nomination. After "The Closer," Wolfson stayed in the TNT family to write for the first two seasons of "Saving Grace," starring Holly Hunter. He has since begun developing TV series of his own; he has sold two pilots to Sony Studios and is developing both of them with his producer, Neil Moritz. He is also developing a crime procedural with Warren Littlefield, a political drama with Mosaic Media, and a dramady with Provissiero Entertainment.

Jeffrey Berman: What is the most important asset a writer must possess?

Roger Wolfson: Commitment. Only a massive commitment to the art form will provide a writer with the discipline, open-mindedness, desire to work and apply oneself, and stick-to-it-iveness that our craft demands.

JB: How does writing for a series on a cable network, such as Saving Grace, differ from working on a series for one of the major networks like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit? Are there any advantages?

RW: Here's conventional wisdom: broadcast network shows pay better, but demand a lot more time and a lot more of your year, giving you less time to work on your own projects. Broadcast Network shows tend to take fewer creative risks than shows on Cable. And Cable networks tend to invest more heavily in their shows than the broadcast networks; they develop fewer shows, and spend more energy keeping those shows on the air.

Personally, I recommend both to any writer. Each is a unique and powerful creative experience. The challenges will make you grow as a writer. Learning how to work with people, learning that any creative endeavor is a team effort and you simply can't bring your ego into the process, is incredibly valuable. On any show you have no choice: show up to serve, show up to help out and chip in - or go home.

JB: What is the most important thing to you when writing an episode of a TV series: plot, character, conflict, or something else?

RW: There are character writers who say that character is everything. There are procedural writers who say that plot is everything. Both will say that conflict is key. For me, this is like asking which is more important - the left brain or the right. I would say that any great work of drama involves both sides of the brain working in sync. And any great script has character AND plot. I don't like simple character studies. And I don't like simple mathematic shows that structure a great story without any depth of character. I say, have it all. Aim high.

JB: How do you approach writing an episode for a series like The Closer once the story has been approved?

RW: I think the key is to read as many scripts by the showrunner as possible, and remember that whatever show you are on is the Showrunner's baby. Not yours. Your job on a TV staff is to provide the showrunner with a script that sounds, looks, feels, and matches his or her own best work. There is almost always one person on the writing staff who best "gets" the showrunner's style. I suggest befriending that person. :) Ask that person as many questions as possible. But do not fear approaching the showrunner directly if you don't have clarity. Better you ask now, than submit a script that misses the mark.

Just remember above all that you are here to help the showrunner, to make his or her job easier. Now, this does not mean being obsequious or failing to bring your own perspective and fresh ideas to the process. But do those things only in as much as doing so is helpful to the showrunner. TV writing is an odd job in that fashion. It's as if you are writing a chapter of a great novelist's book. Your job is to write a chapter that fits and flows with the rest of the novel - NOT one that stands out as different - with an awareness that you may get thanked in the credits, but the novelist's name (and only his or her name) will appear on the cover. It's his/her book. The more you think of being on staff in that way, the more successful you'll be.

JB: Can you offer some tips for writing authentic dialogue that is to the point, focused, and moves the story forward?

RW: First and foremost, read it out loud. Also, have friends read it aloud in front of you. Force yourself to listen. Make sure it sounds real. Make sure it sounds like the way people talk. If it sounds even like a hint of exposition, if it sounds obvious - throw it out. On Saving Grace, Nancy Miller is a stickler for knowing up front what your point of the scene is. The point of the scene should be something fairly simple. And it should bubble up from the dialogue without seeming forced. Almost accidentally, almost (even) unnoticed. The rest of the scene is just slice of life, people doing what people really DO, on a daily basis.

Another way I make sure I do that is to keep my favorite of the showrunner's scenes in front of me as I write. Before I ever write a scene, I just take a second, read that favorite scene, THEN write. And then I compare - does my scene flow like that one? Is it as funny, easy, real, true, simple?

Lastly, avoid parentheticals like they are the plague itself. Use action lines, but treat them as if they are poisonous and must be kept to a bare minimum. Be brutal, even cruel about trimming excess out of your script. You will be glad you did.

JB: What is the secret to working as a TV writer?

RW: Developing your skills as a writer, and writing spectacular specs, is the only way to do it. Great work will always find an audience. The way to get there, for me, is to cultivate a huge braintrust of people I can count on to read my work and give me honest feedback. I don't develop a pitch until practically all of them say it's fantastic. I don't flesh out an outline until practically all of them tell me the outline is more than good enough to go. I don't call the script "done" until practically every member of my thirty person braintrust has said, with certainty, that this script is superb, one of the best they've ever seen. I will work myself endlessly to get that point. And, in gratitude to my friends who read draft after draft of my work, I take my braintrust friends out to dinner, I take them sailing on my boat, and I am always ready to read their scripts with the same zeal they read mine. And when I get my own show on the air, they know I will find a place for them. And since they are familiar with my abilities, I can assume the same goes for me, if they get their shows on the air, first.

The Write Environment Featuring an Interview with the co-creator of The Simpsons, Sam Simon

2009-07-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

The Write Environment at Comic-Con International San Diego 2009

2009-07-13T20:17:00.001-07:00

The Write Environment is pleased to announce its 1st appearance at Comic-Con International San Diego, the world’s largest comic book and pop culture convention. Join us in the San Diego Convention Center July 23-26, 2009, where we will be appearing at booth #1429 courtesy of Write Brothers, Inc. Software for Writers, the creators of Movie Magic Screenwriter.

I will be appearing at the Write Brothers booth selling and signing copies of my latest DVD, The Write Environment: The Comic Book Series Special Edition featuring interviews with three of the giants in the comic book industry, Marv Wolfman, Mark Waid, and Geoff Johns and bonus feature, a short interview with David Hayter, writer of Watchmen, X-Men and X2. These respected writers provide invaluable behind-the-scenes insights into the creative processes that lead to their award-winning comic book scripts. There will even be guest appearances at the booth by some of the writers.

Stop by, say hello and pick up your copy of this Limited Edition DVD while supplies last.

The Write Environment Featuring an Interview with the creator of Heroes, Tim Kring

2009-07-11T23:37:00.000-07:00

To see the rest of this interview, and to find out what other interviews are avaialble from The Write Environment, go to The Write Environment.com.

TWE enlists the creator of Army Wives, Katherine Fugate

2009-07-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

One of the few criticisms I hear about The Write Environment from time to time is, “Where are the interviews with women writers?” It’s not from lack of interest on my part.

Out of the roughly 9,000 members in the WGA, there are approximately 4,000 members employed as film and TV writers in a given year. Women make up about 25% of the membership and approximately 22% of them are working at any given time. I’d love to tell you I knew all of the women writers in the WGA, or at the very least, they know of me, but it just ain’t so. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know any… With that in mind this week I spoke with my friend, Katherine Fugate, one of the most talented and charming writers (man or woman) in the industry.

Katherine Fugate’s career in entertainment began on the production side, where she learned the ropes as a production assistant. Later, she worked at renowned entertainment talent agency ICM in the literary department. She also held studio positions at 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. She was voted one of Variety's Women of Impact, 2008. Katherine created the hit television drama series “Army Wives” (ABC/Lifetime). Her other television credits include: “Xena: Warrior Princess,” and “Max Steel.” Her feature credits include: “An Ordinary Murder,” “Impermanence,” "Pompeii," “NFL Dad,” “Carolina,” “The Prince & Me,” “The Senator’s Wife,” and “Valentine’s Day.”

Jeffrey Berman: When adapting a book like Army Wives how do you capture the essence and spirit of the original material, the through-line and major sub-plots and cut everything else to fit the scripts limitations?

Katherine Fugate: When the manuscript to the book for Army Wives was first introduced to me, it was titled “Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives” and was written by journalist and Army wife, Tanya Biank, who has now become a good friend. It was a tough, well-written non-fiction account of an unfortunate series of murder-suicides that occurred at Fort Bragg, committed by soldiers who killed their wives shortly after their return from war.

In an attempt to explain the murders and hopefully prevent any more from happening, it also examined the military tradition, culture and lifestyle surrounding them, which became the basis for the fictional series I created. Because we were traveling down an entirely different direction than the non-fiction account, it made it a bit simpler to fashion the fictional setting into a universal tale of love, friendship and camaraderie in order to shine a light on the sacrifices that our military families make for our country.

I am, at present, writing an adaptation of Shakespeare, so that also requires a bit of muscle in that I have to update the master (and I, as a theatre major, take that honor very seriously), while staying true to the politics and heart he employed in a story written in the 1600s, which again can become universal, if adapted successfully. So I suppose the trick is how to relate the material at hand so that all those who see it will be able to identify with it, regardless if they are an Army wife or a Shakespearean character.

JB: Was there ever an issue on Army Wives where the men on staff were writing the women from a stereotypical male perspective or as props? And if so, how did you deal with it?

KF: It is a bit of a cliché to assume that men cannot write women and vice versa, so I try to keep an open mind to all writers, regardless of their gender. What is more important is how they specifically write to the tone and style of the show. Season 1 had a consistent voice which began with the pilot, where we employed a team with similar backgrounds and taste - like Ben Younger, a superb feature writer-director and Marshall Persinger, another fantastic independent film producer with true heart and grace. We were all on the same page when we started and we were able to form a family atmosphere with the cast and crew and that showed. I believe we succeeded in what we all hoped to accomplish in our first year and I am really proud of our success.

JB: Beyond adapting the book, what kind of research went into developing Army Wives and how important is research for any new writer working on a spec for a show like that?

KF: The cast, crew and writers all traveled to Fort Bragg and we all interviewed and met Army wives and families there. I also traveled alone with Tanya Biank to other Army posts and met her family and friends. The military has its own code of conduct, language and of course, all the acronyms to learn. It’s akin to writing about the film business, about politics, law, any setting where shorthand is used and you have your own infrastructure. There was a real learning curve in the military and I threw myself into it.

I am a rather focused, obsessive person by nature and I adore research because it‘s important for me to get it right and not to fake it. When I wrote The Senator’s Wife I had the honor of meeting politicians from Florida and briefly joining John Kerry’s run for the presidency in that state, which helped pepper the script with the insider dialogue and smaller moments I needed to give it authenticity. In writing NFL Dad for Warner Bros and director Chris Columbus, I spent a year with the owners of the New Orleans Saints, from being inside the draft room through one entire NFL season. I even flew to Pompeii, when I wrote that big epic for Paramount and director Jon Amiel. With Valentine’s Day, which starts shooting in July with Garry Marshall directing, I spent the day with Rita of Rita Flora, the flower shop/coffee bar where the script opens.

I personally am not comfortable winging it and feel there is nothing like being there to soak in a culture or see a new side of that life that would never be shown in a book or video of the subject. You never know what you will take home with you and it comes out in surprising ways in the writing, so I am just not comfortable doing it any other way.

As far as writing a spec for the show, I would think your best bet is to know the show itself. It’s amazing how many people don’t actually watch enough episodes to grasp the basic arcs of the characters. I wouldn’t think you’d need to do that much ancillary research, but devising an A storyline that deals with a military issue that can be resolved in that episode (as opposed to setting up a serialized dilemma), would be a smart move. That would show some insight and forethought in creating a great dramatic construct to explore and was one of the harder elements to come up with each week.

JB: Is it more challenging to write for a show with a relatively realistic portrayal of women like in Army Wives versus the strong comic book heroines found in Xena Princes Warrior? And is the process any different?

KF: Every show has its own challenges. I was blessed with Xena, because when I joined the team in the 6^th season, the show was so established that I was able to be a bit left-of-center and stretch the boundaries a bit. Army Wives was about creating a brand new show that would move audiences to follow the stories of our characters, so they were entirely different set-ups. I do think with Xena you are given far more latitude - in that I wrote an alternate/parallel life episode with the sci-fi premise of “What if?” and you don’t get to stretch yourself that far on a realistic drama. But at the core, every show succeeds when you care about the characters and their emotional through-line. It’s a basic premise but at times gets forgotten in all the hoopla.

JB: As a writer is it necessary for you to relate in some way to each of the characters you write about?

KF: Absolutely - I leave a little bit of me behind in all my characters. We all are such complex, multifaceted people capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to experience. I truly believe, on a spiritual level, we are able to understand all experiences to some degree, even if we don’t actually live them. We all mess on each other’s lawns, we all share similar fears. We are all connected and we all long for connection. We all love and want to be loved. We all want meaning.

At the core, that’s the human condition, whether you’re an Elizabethan queen or a night janitor in a hospital, so we can all relate to that. Perhaps that is why storytelling is as old as time and we never get bored of watching a story unfold or examining a life well-lived - if only to have more tools to help us understand who we are, why we are here and what this crazy journey is really all about.

Write On Online / The Write Environment Query Contest Winners

2009-07-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the Winners of the Write On! Online/The Write Environment Query Contest. Thanks to everyone who entered! We had so many good submissions. Write On! Online and The Write Environment were pleased to join forces for this contest, designed to help writers jump-start their careers. Queries were judged on strength of idea, execution, and format.

The First Place Winners are:
Screenplay: Mark Golik, The Color of the Puck
Teleplay: Pj Perez, Being
Fiction: Colleen Keane, Dreamwalker
Non-Fiction: David King, The Beautiful Food Garden

And the Grand Prize Winner—who will receive a copy of Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat software—is: Mark Golik!

Mark and Pj will have their queries read by David Boxerbaum, a senior literary agent at APA. Colleen and David’s queries will be sent to Laura Strachan, Strachan Literary Agency. All First-Place Winners will receive an iScript recording of their project.

Second Place
Screenplay: Theresa Carey & Bruce Brochtrup, The Donner Party
Teleplay: Kathi Funston, Couch Cases
Fiction: Ann Wilmer-Lasky, The Seasons of Sam Rock
Non-Fiction: Jennifer Waak, How to Make your Teens WANT to do Their Homework

Second Place Prizes:
- Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire, by Simon Beaufoy, courtesy of The Writers Store
- Teleplay: Sliders script, autographed by writer Jon Povill
- Fiction: From Crime to Crime, autographed by author Dennis Palumbo, courtesy of The Writers Store
- Non Fiction: Heliloggoging in a Sucker Hole, autographed by chopper pilot Bart Colantuono

Third Place
Screenplay: Sandy Ross, Jericho Rose
Teleplay: Roberta Annicks, Klown Town
Fiction: Jennifer Philpott, Ruth
Non-Fiction: Liz Tunnell, 101 Ways to Meet a Man

Third Place Prizes, courtesy of Barnes & Noble:
- Screenplay: Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
- Teleplay: Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television by Richard Walter
- Fiction: Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass
- Non-Fiction: Thinking like Your Editor by Alfred Fortunato and Susan Rabiner

Remember: Everyone who entered is a winner! They now have a query—at least one—they can start sending out!

To your success,
Debra Eckerling, Write On! Online
Jeffrey Berman, The Write Environment

The Write Environment: The Comic Book Series Special Edition

2009-07-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

He's an advance look at the cover for The Write Environment: The Comic Book Series Special Edition Featuring Interviews with Marv Wolfman, Mark Waid, Geoff Johns. This limited edition DVD will be available at this year's San Diego Comic Con in three weeks.

TWE: The Comic Book Series Special Edition

2009-07-02T02:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some shot from the upcoming release of The Write Environment: The Comic Book Series. The DVD will feature interviews with three of the giants in the comic book industry, Marv Wolfman, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns. That's right, true believers, three interviews for the price of one. It will be available at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con or directly on line from The Write Environment.

The Write On!Write Environment Query Contest

2009-06-29T01:16:00.000-07:00

The deadline for the Write On!Write Environment Query Contest is this Tuesday, June 30.

We are still accepting queries in the following categories:
Screenplay
Teleplay
Fiction (Novel)
Non-Fiction (Memoir/Book)

The winner in each category will have their query letter read by a literary agent and receive a free iScript. One Grand Prize Winner will receive a copy of Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat" Software!

Prizes will also be awarded for 2nd and 3rd place in each category. Sponsors include The Writers Store, Barnes & Noble, and more!

For complete list of prizes and submission guidelines, go to:
http://writeononline.com/2009/05/11/write-on-onlinethe-write-environment-query-contest/

The Write Environment: Featuring an Interview with Damon Lindelof

2009-06-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

The Secret of Writing Great Dialogue

2009-06-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”

-William Faulkner

I’m a Facebook junkie, which is hard for me to admit because I don’t have an addictive bone in my body. I’m not a drug addict or an alcoholic. I don’t smoke cigarettes and I don’t like coffee. I don’t play video games and I rarely gamble. (Poker’s not gambling, right?) But when it comes to Facebook, I’m hooked. I’m embarrassed to admit it but I check it several times a day; almost as often as I check my e-mail. Not for long periods of time, but just long enough to empty my inbox, update my status and maybe play a quick game of Bejeweled.

Facebook has become this generation’s watering hole. It has lifted us out of the virtual darkness and allowed us to network with millions of people we would never have had the opportunity to connect with if it didn’t exist. Like Glenn Benest, for example. For the last several months I’ve been receiving messages from Glenn on a weekly basis. Mind you, we’ve never met in person and I probably wouldn’t know him if he walked up to me on the street and asked if I could change a dollar. But Glenn has become an asset to me as a writer since we were first introduced on Facebook. Each week I receive an update from his Secrets of Screenwriting Group, one of the best groups I belong to on Facebook. The most recent communication is part 21 in a series called, Writing Great Dialogue. It’s been a fantastic tool and since I’ve enjoyed it so much I figured I’d give Glenn an chance to share some of his tips with my readers. If you want to learn more, you can always find him on Facebook. I did, so how hard could it be?

Glenn is an award winning screenwriter/producer with three feature films and four television movies to his credit. He also teaches professional level screenwriting workshops in the Los Angeles area. Five feature films have been launched from his workshops - the latest is 'Niloofar," which just screened at the Berlin International Film Festival and Cannes. For more information about his classes, please go to his website at: www.glennbenest.com or contact him directly at (323) 912-9195 or gbenest@pacbell.net

Jeffrey Berman: How do you define good dialogue?

Glenn Benest: Each character has a different voice, the repartee is clever and sharp with good pacing - good dialogue has a music that is pleasing to the ear.

JB: Can writing good dialogue be taught or is it a talent a select few are born with?

GB: Good dialogue can definitely be taught. There are many dialogue techniques that I use in my workshops to make dialogue "sing." It's also important to point out "on-the-nose" dialogue - that is dialogue that is too obvious, where characters are saying exactly what they're feeling. Bad dialogue like this doesn't allow the reader or viewer to participate in the scene because the characters are simply spilling their guts. We want to figure out what someone is actually feeling. There are a number of techniques to overcome this kind of dialogue.

JB: Are there any secrets to making your characters sound real, natural and spontaneous?

GB: The real secret is to remember that people will do everything they can to protect themselves from hurt or betrayal or embarrassment. So no one wants to let anyone but their closest friends know what they're really feeling. Therefore we use humor, cynicism, and other defense mechanisms to protect our feelings. Truly put yourself into the beingness of your characters and write from their point-of-view, rather than have them spout things you want them to say. Characters will then surprise you - say things you didn't expect or do things you didn't expect them to do. This is when characters really come alive.

JB: Why is it so important to write dialogue that is not on-the-nose and are there ever any times when it’s okay to break that rule?

GB: We try to avoid on-the-nose dialogue at all times. But there are obligatory scenes in a movie, when characters break though their self imposed limitations and speak directly from the heart. These moments are rare but turning points in a character's development. At these times, it's quite alright for a character to say exactly how he or she is feeling. Almost all romantic comedies have scenes like this at their climactic moments.

JB: How important is subtext when writing dialogue and why?

GB: Subtext is what good dialogue is all about. Subtext is what's happening under the words the characters are saying. This is dialogue that is not on-the-nose. Characters are saying one thing but we sense something else is happening emotionally that isn't being said. A man and a woman are taking shots at each other but we sense they're actually very attracted to one another but for some reason cannot express these feelings. This is great stuff in a movie because we get to participate in the scene - it's up to us to figure out what are the real emotions being expressed.

JB: What advice would you offer writers to help them become better at writing engaging dialogue?

GB: Buy great film scripts - Study the dialogue. Try to pinpoint exactly what makes the dialogue work. Where do you see examples of dialogue that is not on-the-nose. Study the pacing of the dialogue. What do we mean by the music of the repartee? Notice how most dialogue is spare. No matter how serious a subject is, pay attention to the use of humor in all good dialogue.

I would also suggest joining a writing workshop; get your dialogue to be spoken out loud by the other members of the workshop so you can actually hear it out loud. There is no better way to actually experience if you're dialogue is working or not. Listening to it in your head is not nearly as effective as hearing it out loud.

The Write Environment: Featuring an Interview with Joss Whedon

2009-06-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

The Write Environment; Featuring an Interview with Marv Wofman

2009-06-11T20:28:00.001-07:00

Here's a sneak peak look at some snapshots from my interview with Marv Wolfman, one of my favorite comic book writers from my youth.

Comedically Speaking: An Interview With David H. Steinberg

2009-06-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

“Talking about comedy is not funny”
- Johnny Carson

I play cards once a week with a regular group of guys. At times it’s like a scene straight out of a Neil Simon play with lots of witty repartee, snappy comebacks and of course, the cliché verbal barbs and sarcastic ragging on one another. What else are we going to do during five and a half hours of poker? One of the guys at the table is David H. Steinberg, writer of a lot of funny films, including American Pie 2 and Slackers. In response to my sense of humor, David coined the phrase “that’s a Berman.” It’s a reference he uses whenever I rephrase the punchline to a joke or a bit that someone in the room has just told. It never fails to get a rise out of him. I once tried to explain to David why I think the act of repetition is funny, but he wasn’t buying it. He’s laughing at my expense. Its okay, I’m laughing back.

All this proves is that comedy is subjective.

There’s an old rule of thumb that tells us that to analyze a joke is to kill it. So how do you know when something you’ve written is funny? I asked David what he thinks.

After graduating Yale, David sold his first spec script called Slackers. Following on the heels of Slackers, David was hired by Universal to write American Pie 2. Since then he's written Puss In Boots (a spin-off from Shrek), Howard Stern’s Porkys and Love at Second Bite, to name just a few of his upcoming projects. David also wrote and directed a short film called The Babysitter, which can be viewed exclusively at Atom Films at http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/the_babysitter/. Watch it, it’s funny. Something David and I agree on.

Jeffrey Berman: Are there any essential steps or rules when writing a comedy script?

David Steinberg: I think the only essential step is to pick something—a character, a premise, even just a thematic idea—that makes the project a MOVIE. Because there will be times when it’s not funny or makes no sense and you need to be able to come back to that core thing you love that makes you say, “But I know this is a movie.” That’s what gets you through the rewrites and keeps you focused on the goal. If you doubt the core idea/character/theme so will everyone else.

JB: How do you know when something you’ve written is funny?

DS: Sometimes I actually make myself laugh out loud. It’s rare but when I get one of those lines or moments, I know I’m on the right track. The rest—that’s up to the reader or audience. I’m just as unsure as anyone else so you need to run it by people you trust. Plus, it’s often a numbers game. Maybe you can’t score laughs with 100% of your jokes, but a script is 120 pages and 95% funny is still pretty funny. The one thing you can’t do is let yourself get paralyzed with insecurity questioning whether it’s funny. I just move on and come back to the problem spots later. If I can’t punch it up after a dozen tries, maybe I’ll just delete the line altogether.

JB: When writing a sequel to a successful film like American Pie, is it incumbent upon you to recreate the original characters and conflicts exactly as they were written previously or can you bring your own brand of humor and sensibility to the script?

DS: American Pie 2 was largely about writing in the style of the first one. It’s not that hard to imitate—TV writers do it all day long. On American Pie 7 (“Book of Love,” coming out this October), it was more of a reboot, so the characters and style were far more original while keeping with the tone of the original. Obviously, it’s a balancing act. On Puss in Boots, I had to learn to write in Antonio Banderas’s voice, but I was also expanding on that character and bringing new information to the table so at the end of the day, I felt like I knew that cat better than the guys who created him. It just becomes your own.

JB: How did you approach the job of writing an updated version of Porky’s?

DS: Porky’s was an interesting rewrite because there had been so many drafts before me that completely missed the spirit and tone of the original movie. A lot of comedy writers just go for maximum laughs per page without any consideration of story, character, or logic. And what happens is the jokes aren’t funny because they’re so over-the-top, so removed from reality, that you don’t care. Maybe that kind of slipshod jokey writing works on “Disaster Movie,” but on teen comedies, it’s all about the emotion, fear, and insecurity of sex and out-of-control hormones. What I did was really weave together five or six character-based storylines and infuse it with emotion. You have to remember that in the original, there was anti-Semitism and an abusive alcoholic dad. We obviously updated those elements, but it had to be dramatic in moments. After my draft really tackled the character issues, brought the tone in keeping with the original, and fixed the logic problems, some jokes that didn’t work in previous drafts all the sudden were funny now.

JB: Where do you start from when writing comedy, characters or premise? And which plays a bigger role in comedy?

DS: It’s a little of both. I think comedy is all about character and if you create a hero we love, we’ll want to follow him anywhere. I’ve written comedies that have virtually no concept and they are some of my best scripts. But I think it’s a mistake to ignore concept altogether in choosing an idea to write. Not everyone can pull off “Clerks.” So sometimes a really clever idea is going to motivate you, but then you have to figure out how to populate it with a great character. I mean, if you want it to be good. If you’re writing “The Transformers”…

JB: What advice do you have for writers working on that first spec comedy?

DS: Make shit happen. Too many comedy specs are all about dialogue. Character is revealed through action not sitting around talking about why hot girls don’t appreciate you and your bong-smoking friends. The irony of “Slackers” was that the heroes were out there pulling incredible scams that took a lot more effort than just doing the original work they were trying to avoid. The producers kept trying to change the title because the characters weren’t slackers at all, but I couldn’t write a script about guys literally just sitting around doing nothing. It would bore me to death.

The Write Environment: Featuring an Interview with Jay Kogen

2009-06-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

Write On! Online/The Write Environment Query Contest

2009-06-05T01:38:00.000-07:00

The first step in getting your project noticed is to have a dazzling and informative query.

Enter the The Write Environment/Write On! Online Query Contest by June 22. The winner in each category – Screenplay, Teleplay, Fiction, and Non-Fiction - will have their query read by a literary agent, among other prizes.

A query is the letter sent to an editor, literary agent, or publisher a writer uses to promote a project - and him or herself.

"What elements must all query letters have?"
• Great opening hook
• Supplemental information about your book or article (word count, people you interviewed for the article, genre your book [or screenplay] falls into, etc.)
• Information about you - aka your "platform"
• A request to send your manuscript or proposal - or for representation in the case of an agent.
• How to contact you

First Prize
- David Boxerbaum, a senior literary agent working at APA, where he represents writers and directors in the feature and TV world, will read the winners in the screenplay and teleplay categories
- Laura Strachan, who has a boutique literary agency, specializing in literary fiction and narrative non-fiction, will read the fiction and non-fiction queries
- The winning queries will also win an iScript recording of their project. Screenplay or Teleplay up to 110 pages ($275 value); prose or non-fiction up to 20,000 words ($300 value)
- One Grand Prize winner will take home a copy of Save the Cat Software

Second Prize
- Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire, by Simon Beaufoy, courtesy of The Writers Store
- Teleplay: Sliders script, autographed by writer Jon Povill
- Fiction: From Crime to Crime, autographed by author Dennis Palumbo, courtesy of The Writers Store
- Non Fiction: Heliloggoging in a Sucker Hole, autographed by Bart Colantuono, a chopper pilot who can currently be seen on this season of Ax Men on The History Channel

Third Prize, courtesy of Barnes & Noble
- Screenplay: Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
- Teleplay: Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television by Richard Walter
- Fiction: Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass
- Non-Fiction: Thinking like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published by Alfred Fortunato and Susan Rabiner

Submission Guidelines
- Email your query to writeononline@yahoo.com by June 22
- Queries should be 1 page
- No attachments, paste text in the body of the email
- Include name, email address, address, phone number, and category at the top of your submission
- There is no charge to enter this contest
- By submitting, you are agreeing to join the Write On! and The Write Environment email lists

Winners will be announced on July 7 in the Write On! July Newsletter and on www.writeononline.com and www.thewriteenvironment.com.

The Write Environment and Write On! Online are pleased to join forces for this contest, designed to help writers jump-start their careers. Sponsors include The Writers Store, iScript, Blake Snyder and Save the Cat, and more. For tips on writing a good query letter, read the Write On! Online Author Q&A with The Query Queen Wendy Burt-Thomas.Submit your query today!

To your success,

Jeffrey Berman, The Write Environment

Debra Eckerling, Write On! Online